MTN Group Foundation and the Gates Foundation have announced a four-year, $25 million partnership aimed at reducing maternal mortality in Nigeria through 2030.
Gatekeepers News reports that the initiative, described by the organisations as the “first-of-its-kind Maternal Health Multiplier platform”, will use artificial intelligence-enabled healthcare tools, affordable smartphones and mobile data to expand access to maternal health information and services.
According to the foundations, the programme is designed to help 500,000 women access trusted health guidance, equip 5,000 frontline health workers with tools to identify pregnancy and childbirth complications early, and support 500 health facilities in providing more consistent and higher-quality maternal healthcare.
The platform will provide phone-based, AI-enabled decision-support tools for mothers and frontline healthcare workers, while also improving connectivity at healthcare facilities.
The organisations said the initiative would complement existing healthcare systems by making smartphones and mobile data more affordable for pregnant women and improving access to digital health resources.
Although maternal survival has improved globally, with maternal deaths falling by 40 percent since 2000, progress has slowed, according to the foundations.
They noted that women in sub-Saharan Africa remain at significantly higher risk of maternal death than women in Western Europe, while Nigeria accounts for nearly 30 percent of maternal deaths worldwide.
Speaking on the partnership, Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Ali Pate, said strengthening primary healthcare and supporting frontline workers remained central to the government’s health sector reforms.
“Strengthening primary healthcare and empowering the frontline health workers who deliver it are core to our health sector reforms.”
Pate added that partnerships designed to work within existing healthcare systems were important to reaching women who remain underserved.
“Partnerships that work with our existing health systems, rather than around them, are exactly what’s needed to reach mothers who are still falling through the cracks. We welcome this collaboration and look forward to it strengthening the work already underway.”
The four-year partnership was announced at Semafor’s Next 3 Billion event, held on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Mupita, said technology could help make maternal healthcare more personalised and accessible.
“The future of maternal health depends on ensuring that every mother, regardless of where she lives, can access the support she needs to make informed decisions throughout her journey. Technology is creating unprecedented opportunities to make healthcare more personalised, predictive and accessible.”
Mupita said the initiative would leverage artificial intelligence to provide mothers and healthcare professionals with locally relevant health information.
“As artificial intelligence evolves, we can put trusted, locally relevant health insights directly into the hands of mothers and healthcare professionals, tailored to their unique needs and languages. Starting in Nigeria, our ambition is to demonstrate a scalable model for improving maternal and child health outcomes across Africa.”
Gates Foundation CEO, Mark Suzman, said artificial intelligence could significantly improve healthcare if its benefits reached people who needed them most.
“AI has enormous potential to improve health, but only if its benefits reach the people who stand to gain the most.”
He said philanthropic funding could help ensure that technological advances did not remain accessible only to people who could afford them.
“Left to the market alone, potential tends to benefit those who can already afford it, not the people who need it most. That’s where philanthropy has a role to play: not as a substitute for investment, but as a catalyst for it.”
Suzman said programmes such as the Maternal Health Multiplier would help put AI-powered health tools directly in the hands of Nigerian mothers and frontline healthcare workers.
